An Odd Stork Delivery
by DannyPhanto fan
Summary: A surprise for Ned and Chuck.


_**Summary: Ned and Chuck are happily unmarried but cannot have a family together (for obvious reasons). So when a morbid package shows up at the door will their wish be fulfilled?**_

_**Rated: T**_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own the series or characters', darn. I don't own Arkham Asylum, I don't WANT to own Arkham either. It is owned by Bob Kane.**_

Ned the Piemaker and Charlotte 'Chuck' Charles were happily unmarried and had been so for two years, 26 weeks, 5 days and 21 hours. Their lives were a graceful dance without much personal contact. They kissed through plastic wrap, held hands while wearing gloves and other odd traits.

No they weren't germophobic together but skin to skin contact was out of the question as Chuck would be dead if that were to occur between them.

The facts were these; Chuck had been murdered little more than three years ago but had been brought to life by Ned's, very unique, life giving touch while still in her coffin. The idea had been to find her killer but Ned, plagued by more than friendly feelings for her since their childhood friendship, was unable to administer the second fatal poke. So having saved her from the clutches of her untimely demise, and then from the prospect of being buried alive, their delicate tango began almost immediately. But Ned was plagued by fear for if he was to touch her, skin-to-skin wise, ever again she would resume being a corpse and remain so for eternity.

As so he was very aware, as was she, that they could never be married, never have children, never be a normal couple at all. She devastated by this, for she had always seen herself as having children with the man she loved but knew that her second life was costing them both things that they very much desired. But rather than call it quits they toughed it out.

It was Saturday morning where our story starts. As he let Digby out for his bathroom break (there was a small park down stairs) Ned found a rather large box addressed to himself and his lovely "un-wife".

"Entering," he announced himself as he entered the kitchen where she was deftly flipping flapjacks.

She threw him a smile over her shoulder as she plated the cakes and brought them to the table.

"Let's open it now." She said. He smiled at her enthusiasm and nodded his assent. He watched her open the box, only to become concerned by seeing her turn green. He reached for the box but she slapped his sleeved arm away, hissing, "Don't touch it!"

This was so very un-Chuck-like that he became fearful. She lifted a dead baby from the box. She looked at the little girl. And suddenly she got a very Chuck-like gleam in her eyes as she looked to him.

Ned could see the cogs working in her mind; he was fearful. It was not that he wouldn't give anything she wanted to her; but the Piemaker was very afraid of children and the very idea of fatherhood scared him to no end. He had been guiltily secure in the knowledge that they would never have children and had been meticulously avoiding the subject of adoption.

He looked forlornly to the roof as if asking whoever was up over them what he had done that ticked them off enough for them to punish the Piemaker as such. He wouldn't be able to say no to this one.

The dead cat was hard enough to refuse, but a human child? He was doomed from the start. So sighing jadedly he paused briefly as he wondered who the girl had been before leaning forward and, for want of a better word, poked the body with his index finger before withdrawing quickly to again ponder two puzzling questions. Who put the body on his doormat and why?

Also who was the girl?

The facts were these; Sandra Sanders was born 33 weeks, four days, and five hours ago. She was born to Mrs. and Mr. Sanders of Lake House Avenue, two rights and three lefts down from the Pie-Hole. She was their pride and joy but when she was born Mrs. Sanders slipped into a particularly nasty case of Post Partum Depression. Sandra died peacefully in her sleep because of SIDS and Mr. Sanders, fearing that such news would be the last blow to his wife's sanity had shipped the body to anywhere on earth and as it so happened it was shipped to the Piemaker's residence. The bereaved husband told his wife that their daughter had passed away and that he had arranged a hasty burial in his native Ireland where her body was heading to now. As he had feared his wife suffered a mental breakdown and had to be sent off to Arkham Asylum for the incurably insane. So Mr. Sanders was now a bachelor again…he went out, got drunk, tried to drive home, managed to wrap his car about pole and died instantly. Though obviously Ned and Chuck did not know this and so puzzled over it.

Chuck renamed the girl Cassandra, as it seemed to fit, and soon she became a welcomed part of the oddest family in the city.

The dance gained new steps, more complexity. Digby though seemed to understand that this new person was like him and Chuck and that Ned was very dangerous to be around. He barked when Ned came too close without every inch of his skin covered. He barked when Chuck and Cassandra were nearing Ned and, once the girl began crawling, he made himself her herder.

It became commonplace to see Chuck, with Cassandra placed on her back, baking pies as they were ordered. Digby wore a hair net as he monitored their movement around the Piemaker himself.

Olive Snook was not happy. Chuck was around for the long haul. And Olive was not happy about it all. But she put on a smile and worked through it without breaking into a song again.

Patrons were delighted by Cassandra. She brightened the colorful but somber interior of the bakery and indeed Ned and Chuck seemed happier themselves, which is all any of their regular customers wanted.

Emerson Cod believed that Ned had finally lost it. First Chuck, now a baby? Would the kid even age? Digby was over 19 years older than he appeared. And bringing Cassandra to a morgue to talk to the dead? Wouldn't that traumatize her?

Oh well.

Now as it so happened when Cassandra was eight her pet parrot, also found dead, died, again, and as she reached to remove the body from the cage, she lived around death having once asked her father why he didn't hug her or Mom like her friends' fathers did their wives and children and had been told the truth, and as her fingers closed about the avian he popped back up revived.

Immediately she ran screaming out to her parents and told them what happened. Of course they were skeptical but after she brought back a dead beetle and then killed it again they believed her.

She now knew what to get her father for his birthday, although she would be giving up a lot.

"Hey Dad," she said innocently, "kiss, skin-to-skin, Mom. You know you want to…"

Of course Ned wanted to feel Chuck's lips upon his but knew that for that single moment of bliss he'd pay with a lifetime of misery.

"No," he said resolutely. So Cassandra sighed, hugged her Mom tightly before pushing the woman into the man, they were sitting on the couch so skin contact occurred as her cheek hit his. Instantly the life fled from Chuck and rigor mortis set in.

"No…" the Piemaker whispered roughly, his face draining of color. He clutched the corpse, horrified by what his cursed touch had wrought upon his beloved.

"Sorry Dad," Cassandra said without a hint of remorse. Ned stared at his daughter wondering what on Earth had gone wrong in her upraising. Was this because of the distance, both emotionally and physically, he put between them? He was normal, even though his father had been distant as well.

Then anger welled in him. Anger was not new to the Piemaker, just unfamiliar. He never really had it before in the amount that he owned now. He hadn't even wanted to resurrect the brat! He did so only because of his love for Chuck and look at what that had cost him.

Now Ned was not characteriscally cruel nor was he ever deliberately rude but considering that he had just lost his soul-mate this was the exception, "Get out." he ground out to Cassandra, "Get out and never come back, GET OUT!"

She stared at him, trembling under his cold glare. Her father had never raised his voice to anyone nor lost that warmth his eyes usually bore. It was then and there that she realized that Chuck was his everything. She reached out and flicked her mother's big toe before speeding out the door. She stole away to Aunt Olive's apartment down the hall, even as Chuck awoke from Death's hold once more.

----

Olive Snook was far from happy. She was enjoying her favorite daytime soap on SoapNet, "All My Children" for those readers who were wondering, when there came a pounding on her door and found, upon further investigation, a crying Cassandra on her doormat. She managed to get a half truth from the girl, who even when hysterical knew to protect THE SECRET as her family referred to it. Olive Snook was not upset with the girl, not in the least, but with Ned the Piemaker.

She made the child some hot coco and let her watch TV while she went to give Ned a piece of her mind.

She met the Piemaker halfway; his head was hung, his eyes remorseful as he gazed at her.

She opened her mouth, about to let him have it when he said, "I know you're mad, I know what I did was wrong, can I just have her back please?"

Stunned, Olive mutely nodded and watched as he collected the girl.

----

They found Chuck making a blueberry pie as they entered. Cassandra and her father sat down at the table, after having exchanged apologies for their earlier behavior. She smiled around her piece of pie, cherry, as she watched her parents kiss without anything between them.

Grabbing her napkin, she wiped her face, and said, "I'm gonna take Digby for a walk, we'll be gone for two hours exactly. I want a sibling by the end of this year."

She then got up from the table, called Digby to her, put his harness and leash on before walking calmly out the door with a wink to her father and a nod towards her mother.

She had given her dad the best birthday gift ever; she was good.

THE END


End file.
